Sky News presenter Eamonn Holmes has admitted he would "like to be in the frame" for a presenting job on Daybreak, although ITV newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky has distanced herself from taking over as a co-host of the ITV1 breakfast show.

Kaplinsky and Holmes have been widely tipped as frontrunners to take over hosting Daybreak, following reports that Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley are to leave the show in the new year.

The former BBC presenter, now working for ITV News, has a close working relationship with incoming Daybreak editor David Kermode – he was editor of 5 News when Kaplinsky was anchor – and helped make her a firm frontrunner to takeover from Bleakley.

However, a spokeswoman for Kaplinsky has all but ruled her out, saying that she has done her "fair share" of pre-dawn starts when she worked at BBC Breakfast, and wasn't keen on the "anti-social hours" Daybreak will require.

"Natasha has already done her fair share of early starts on BBC Breakfast, so I can't imagine she'd want to go back to those anti-social hours," said the spokeswoman. "She is currently really enjoying her time in the ITV newsroom, where the team have made her very welcome."

However Holmes, who worked Daybreak's forerunner GMTV for 12 years until leaving in 2005, has expressed an interest in a return.

"I'm the longest-serving breakfast presenter in the country, so I'd like to think I'd be in the frame," he told the Manchester Evening News, while attending a Manchester United charity luncheon on Monday with his wife Ruth Langsford.

However, ITV made an eleventh-hour move to hire Chiles - who emerged as a contender after falling out with the BBC over plans to bring in Chris Evans to host the Friday edition of The One Show in his place - alongside Bleakley and rebrand the morning show as Daybreak.

When asked if he had been approached about the hosting position he said: "In this business you get enquiries and approaches all the time."

Holmes currently hosts ITV's This Morning on Fridays and half-term holidays with Langsford.

Other names in the running include Chris Hollins, the BBC Breakfast sports presenter.

This has fuelled speculation that presenters such as Tim Lovejoy and Gethin Jones might be in with a shout to replace Chiles; while names such as Helen Fospero, who did well as a guest presenter recently, and Sinead Desmond, presenter of TV3 breakfast show Ireland AM, have been mentioned.

The Daily Mirror article adds Lucy Watson, Daybreak's northern reporter, as a possible candidate as she has been a "hit with the viewers".

The BBC took a gamble in appointing Alex Jones, then a relatively little known regional presenter at BBC Wales, to replace Bleakley on The One Show when she defected to ITV last year.

Kate Garraway and Dan Lobb, currently part of the Daybreak team, could also see their roles boosted in the Daybreak job shuffle.

• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediatheguardian.com or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

• To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook.